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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

How to Make Homemade Laundry Detergent

I bought all the ingredients to make my own laundry detergent a while ago but procrastination got the best of me and I kept putting it off. Finally last week I ran out of detergent and my laundry was piling up so I was forced to go ahead and make my own.

It is so simple and will save you tons of money, especially if you have a larger family. I do laundry pretty much every day so this will absolutely be a money saver for my family.

You will need:

Borax - I found this box of borax at Target in the same area you find the detergent and fabric softener.

Washing Soda - Not the same as Baking Soda, I found this at Walmart also in the laundry isle.

Bar of Soap - Any kind you have.

Grater, large pot, bucket, long spoon.

The first thing you need to do is grate your bar soap. You could also chop it up but grating seemed like the easiest way.

When you are done it will look like this:

Now, you need a really cute kid to grab you a pot. Since we're friendly you can borrow one of mine if needed.

Fill your pot with one gallon of water. Bring to a boil, add your soap flakes and then simmer until your soap has dissolved.

You are then going to add 1 cup of washing soda and 1 cup of borax. Stir with your long spoon until this has also dissolved and you will noticed a top layer starting to form on your pot.

Turn off your heat and add 1 gallon of cold water. My pot was too small to hold the extra gallon of water so I dumped my first gallon into a bucket and then added my cold water. Mix well.

You're done!!! That's it! So easy. All you have to do is pour your detergent into a jug or you can use an older detergent container and an old pitcher.

Now after this sits for awhile it will coagulate and form into globs. If you are using a jug of some sort you will have to squeeze to get the globs out. Also, you will not see this create a lot of bubbles when you add to your

water. I use 1/2 cup to 3/4 cups per load depending on the size.

I have done a ton of laundry in the last few days and I think it works great! Just as well as any other detergent I've tried and the borax and washing soda are all natural. To make it even better you could use an all natural type of soap. I also used it to pre-treat a light colored shirt that had some food stains and they all came out. I'm very happy with it and I don't think I'll ever go back to store bought.

3 comments:

HOLY MALOLY, GIRL! You are a freakin' rock star! I may - MAY, I repeat - have done this either as a young mom trying to seriously budget, OR when I first 'discovered' Martha Stewart & thought I had to BE her. (GLAD I got over THAT!!!) But now? It's just me & my housemate and 3 loads Mon.- Wed.- Fri. of each week. My good old box of Tide lasts me forever. Still, you really ARE a rock star!